Tree of Hope
by kellylaurels
Summary: Jareth has been left broken by his defeat, can the people that care about him the most bring him back from the edge and prevent a new power from rising? This is a Jareth/OC story, sorry! Some of this will be M eventually!


Hello everyone.

I've been reading Labyrinth fiction for many years and this is my first go! I took this chapter down a while ago and have re-edited it.

Hope you enjoy and it's too terrible.

Thank you for reading

Kelly.

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><p>It had been a month since that fateful night, a month since the unexpected became reality and a month since Jareth had felt a stoney hand close it's palm around his heart. It was in that month that the weight of the world had settled upon his shoulders and the constricted feeling within his chest had yet to disappear. The castle was in ruins and as for his life, well that was another thing entirely. He was manic and starved, both mentally and physically. Recklessly he had dismantled his surroundings but now he was tired, now he could allow the reality to sink in and his thoughts were slowly eating away at his soul.<p>

Jareth's throne seemed significantly smaller since the defeat, the light within the castle had faded and an unsettling silence had rested upon everyone at court. Not one person dared to utter more than a whisper as they watched the king lose his mind slowly. The few whispers that managed to escape only spread rumors of a king in decline. No wife? No family? The line of succession was over.

Of course the king was aware of these rumors, in the lonely weeks that he had spent mulling over his defeat his mind had always slipped back to thinking about one thing. A child would provide security, he was weak. A new threat meant that his throne and his people were in danger.

...

_Arabellas Eyrie_

She watched her son in ruins, a storm was coming and it was coming fast. Without a family the goblin king was an easy target. She had warned him that a mortal wife was not a wise choice, that in the end the young girl would fail him but as always her son had ignored the warning. Arabella had to admit, at first the girl seemed promising - strong willed and confident like Jareth but she was just a young girl desperate to return home whilst Arabella's quasi-psychotic son put her through tests that no young girl should ever have to experience. She turned away from the sight within her crystal ball, she had decided to intervene, her son would not disintegrate before her, no, she would not allow that to happen.

Arabella's younger song Lucian was pacing around the dusty room, his cane tapped the floor with every other step whilst his wife Soffine sat on the steps leading away from her mother-in-law's throne. This was a scene that occurred most days since Sarah's departure from the underworld. Lucian and Jareth had not been close for some time, of course a natural rivalry had formed between the pair as they had grown older but it was always Jareth's destiny to become King. Lucian could be described as Jareth's polar opposite, his prescense did not have the ability to silence a person or to chill a person to the bone, Lucian had a hard enough time controlling his dog let alone an entire court, but of course to Lucian this was not something that mattered, he had always wanted that throne.

"Is he still festering?" Lucian had slowed to a halt, he was tired of waiting around for Jareth to either vanish into obscurity or to finally take charge of his life. "I can't believe he fell in love with a child."

"He wasn't in love with her." Soffine rarely spoke lately but she knew Jareth and she knew when to voice her opinion. She sat on the stairs plainly dressed leaning back on her elbow's. Her auburn hair fell loosely around her shoulders, she looked tired and not like the wife of a prince. "He may have been infatuated with the idea of being in love with a mortal, but did he love her? No." She looked towards Arabella, she had always felt close to this family, they had practically raised her and she would do anything to help them. Soffine had complete faith in Arabella's ability to rescue her son from an inadequate fate and from the look on her face it was clear that she already had a plan.

Sitting down on her old throne Arabella announced to her two faithful companions. "We need to go to him."

...

_Many years ago._

The young girl had no control over her body as she went flying forwards towards a threatening looking puddle of mud, within seconds she was drenched and her newest dress was thick with mud. The mess of red curls on her head hung around her face as she tried to blink back the tears that were already stinging at her eyes. Examining her knee's for damage she scowled as the boy who had sent her to her muddy fate walked around to witness the mess that he had caused.

"Your mother is going to be so angry with you..." He snorted with laughter and waited for his brother to join him. The game of catch had turned into some kind of fight and Soffine had somehow ended up as the biggest victim. She couldn't even look Lucian in the eye as his older brother Jareth walked round to join him.

"We should go..."Jareth barely even looked at Soffine down on the floor. It was almost as if he couldn't bare to look at something so dirty. "We're already late." The two boys ran off together quickly leaving Soffine to stew in her mud bath, when she was sure that she was truly alone the tears began to flow freely. The sobs were so great that her vision became clouded, struggling to get up she only managed to slip back down again and with a deflated sigh she resigned herself to the fact that she was going to die in that puddle. From nowhere a hand came to help her up, blinking away the tears she looked up into the mismatched eye's of someone she hated.

Soffine was eight when she first fell in love with Jareth.

...

Please let me know what you think, I have some ideas and would love to know if I should continue or not!

Thank you darling xox


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